I was introduced to the work of Schmid by a fellow student on the MA. His diverse work is extremely interesting and conceptual but his work with found images is particularly relevant to this project.
In Pictures from the Street Schmid collects images found in public spaces - this inspired my idea of placing my images in Levenshulme High Street - I like the idea of people finding my photographs and wondering why they are there, but I also suspect that many people will not notice them; the images, which have been carefully researched, taken and printed, simply become part of the scene - further detritus in the street. Something precious (to me, at least) becomes throwaway, discarded pieces of ephemera.
Seba Kurtis
Kurtis owns a collection of family photos; following a financial crisis in the 1980s, his family home was repossessed along with all belongings. The family were left with nothing but a shoebox of photographs, which were later damaged in a flood. The damage to the images represents the damage to the family and it is this link that I hope to recreate in my own work, where the damage to my images is indicative of the damage to the community and the spirit of the high street.
I also like the backs of the images, which are explored by Kurtis as part of the physicality of the work;
This may be something that I explore in my own work, perhaps as representation of the unseen areas of Levenshulme.
Stephen Gill
Gill's project Buried also explores damaged photographs. Gill buried photographs in order to allow the earth to penetrate them and to introduce a loss of control to the work. I will also be giving up some of the control over my images, which is a difficult thing to do as a photographer as one is so intrinsically in control of the entire process, from start to finish. The element of uncertainty in the outcome of the work enables an objective distance from the images.
